


Understanding

by EmilliaGryphon



Series: Groot Steve Rocket Bucky: Scenes From a Life [8]
Category: Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), MCU, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier - Fandom, gotg
Genre: Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Groot is grouchy, Hurt/Comfort, Major character death - Freeform, Platonic Bonding, Platonic Soulmates, to be bucky is to be sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:46:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilliaGryphon/pseuds/EmilliaGryphon
Summary: After the events of Heaven Can Wait Groot must tell Bucky and Steve about Rocket....Content Warnings: Nightmares, loss of a friend, descriptions of torture/animal abuse





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers for Heaven Can Wait We're Only Watching the Sky. 
> 
> Read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14121486/chapters/32540604 
> 
> Also contains spoilers for other GRSB Scenes from a life stories. Read them first!

_ …...In another hundred years this technology could be utilized in every country on earth. _ Bucky let out a small belch and took his gaze off the documentary and down to the empty ice cream container propped against his belly. Damn, all gone. He shrugged, turning back to the TV. There were many things in this century he was still getting used to, many things he didn’t like. But Netflix. Netflix was fantastic. He smiled to himself and licked the spook free of chocolate ice cream.

“Groot?” Bucky thought he heard Steve question from the other room. 

“Steve is that…?”

“Yes, yes of course come on in,” Bucky knew that tone without seeing his face. He groaned, heaving himself to a sitting position on the couch as Groot lumbered in. He was taller, brown twigs stuck out of his limbs where leaves should have been. His eyes sunken and forlorn. Groot’s eyes slid to Bucky, then to the TV, narrowing. In a single motion the long wooden arm swiped up the remote and the screen clicked to black.

“Hey man, what gives?” Groot turned on his large feet and looked down at him with some unreadable look between remorse and a scowl. 

“He said he had something to tell us,” Steve inferred, coming and standing beside him. Groot lifted his lithe fingers gesturing shorly with his hands in the ASL Steve had taught him. 

“R….Rocket?” Bucky pieced out. “Where is the little fucker?” Groot signed again, this time slow deliberate. 

“....d...dead?” Steve guessed with quite trepidation. The flora colossus nodded curtly. 

“Yeah right,” Bucky scoffed, standing up and looking between the two of them. “I’m not buying it. He’s tried this before it’s not going to work.”

“Tried what?” Steve’s confusion redirected to him. Bucky only waved his good arm dismissively. “I’m not giving him anymore money” 

“He faked his own death to get money off you?” 

“Oh don’t worry I’ve done the same thing to him.” Bucky grinned impishly. “Only he falls for it every time!” Steve only raised a brow, folding his arms. “Ive been emotionally blackmailing Rocket  to extort him for money and weapons for years!” He forced a laugh, “That’s like the basis of our friendship.” 

“Dare I ask how many times the two of you have done that to each other?” 

“What!? I have to channel my impulsive violence somehow!” Steve cracked a smile that quickly diminished by Groot’s furious words,

“I am GROOT.”  Bucky huffed,

“Your not...you're not serious.” But the flora colossus only blinked, looking at him incredulously. It couldn’t be. He saw Rocket just a few months ago and the raccoonoid had been as scrappy as ever. Maybe a little worse for wear, some white fur encroaching on otherwise silky brown grey fur but that was to be expected. He was getting older, they were all gradually getting older. 

“When?” Steve murmured, but Bucky hardly heard him. The severity of Groot’s words closing in on him. Rocket couldn’t be gone...that brash heat packing reckless thief had broken out of who knew how many prisons, (98 the last time Rocket bragged about it), he’d faced down a celestial, he helped defeat Thanos, he’d taken on baddies ten times his size! Hell he’d survived much the same torture Bucky himself had gone through. He couldn’t be...dead. Yet somehow looking at Groot, Bucky knew. No wonder the tree like creature looked miserable. His bark was flaking off in sloughs, his eyes not just sunken but exhausted and hollow. Bucky ran a hand over his face, 

“Was he alone?” Bucky murmured, staring anywhere but those large dark eyes. Groot shook his head. “Was....was he in pain?” The flora’s frown deepened, large shoulders shrugging.

“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know?!” Bucky accoused, stepping dangerously close. He shook with indignation, jaw clenched.  _ So that was how it was going to be? Had Rocket had died in pain...trying to claw the metal out of his flesh?  _ Was that to be his fate then too? A sharp throbbing at the stump of his shoulder where his own skin met metal was the only answer. 

“I...a...am Groot,” Groot breathed, holding his arms out helplessly. 

“How?” Bucky suppressed the growl in his voice. He watched Groot’s now trembling hands, slowly bending and forming the words.

“Age?” Steve guessed before Bucky could.  _ No that isn’t right. If Rocket is going go down it should be fighting the biggest scariest space demon, going down in a blaze of gunfire pulling the largest heist the galaxy has ever scenes or tail deep in Asgardian whiskey in his room full of gold coins and units...anything but age. Age was too typical to calm for the thievish ringtail. Too mundane. _

“I want to see him,” Bucky managed, still trying to grasp the news. 

“I am Groot?” Groot signed with guarded rigidity. 

“I don’t care,” Bucky bit his tongue before he could shout. “I want to see him.” Steve’s warm hand gripped his shoulder, steadying him. 

“Buck...now might not be the best time to….”

“He was my friend too,” He measured Groot’s look of shielded sorrow with his own. Dark and challenging and righteous. The flora said nothing, but nodded, motioning for the two of them to follow. 

\---

Bucky marveled up at the Benatar’s arching iron ribs, so huge and yet graceful? Or at least it would be if there wasn’t trash thrown about, wires and exposed pipes in bad need of repair.  _ Had Rocket really been gone that long?  _ The sharp scent of too much axe mixed with the ichor of engine grease and weaponry and candy of all things. Groot guided them through the echoing halls to the main bridge. 

“I am Groot,” he announced as Gamora, Quill, the bug lady, Nebula and the tattooed guy, turned to face them. Steve’s smile was almost as strained as his voice, 

“Groot was kind enough to let us aboard...he told us...about Rocket. We were hoping to see him...to say goodbye.” Most of the time Steve’s running mouth got the two of them into a host of troubles but it was times like this Bucky was grateful for it. Quill planted his hands on his hips,

“Well, seeing as this is my ship. He really should have asked me first.But I’m feeling generous today so,” 

Bucky tossed his hair from his face, instinctively reaching for his pistol. The man’s arrogance was unending.

“Cut the bullshit,” he hissed. “we’re here for Rocket. Not you. Get this ship  the air and take us to him and we’ll be on our way. It’s thanks to Rocket this thing is even flying at all” Quill’s mouth gaped like a fish, blinking mutely.

“We cannot take you to Rocket,” the tattooed man who’s name Bucky could not and did not really care to remember intoned, “There is nothing left of him. Besides his cybernetics. Fur and flesh will have rotted away by now.”   _ Nothing left of him besides his cybernetics.  _ Sour churning bile rose within Bucky at the thought, he fought the urge to gag and redirected his murderous glare to the muscular alien.

“Planet X2 four systems away,” Gamora intervened before Quill could come up with some lame comeback. “It won’t take long. But you’ll want to find something to hold on to when we announce the jumps.”

“Thank you,” Steve answered for the two of them. Groot slid around the tattooed man and Mantis, taking a seat in the pilot’s chair and punching in the codes. 

\---

Bucky fiddled with the odd package in his hands,  _ is this supposed to be food?  _ It was impossible to tell what time it was from the endless void of space. The ship drifted forward with the similar movement of the naval ships he’d been aboard during the war. Smooth, with the occasional pitch and throw. Steve had sought out Nebula, the two of them not having seen each other since the battle with Thanos. Bucky thought he heard Steve mention Tony, thus he and cyborg woman had fell into a somber but good natured enough conversation. He found himself wandering the ship alone until coming upon the kitchen area. He gazed at the symbols on the metallic wrapped package and shrugged, sliding into the diner style booth against the wall.  

Footsteps alerted him to someone’s presence a few moments later. He craned his neck and watched the green woman stride in. She instantly looked at him with a passing curiosity and finally walked over to the table, sitting down on the opposite side. 

“What happened?” Bucky broached the inevitable subject with what he hopped was sensitive respect. It was the elephant in the room and his morbid curiosity would not abate. Gamora kneaded her hands together. “Please, I can’t ask Groot,”

“Nor should you,” she quipped sharply, her eyes meeting his with a fierce protectiveness he knew too well. She held him there in that gaze for a moment before looking away, shoulders dropping. “There’s not much to tell. He just got old. It’s not like he took good care of himself. With the biology of a terran animal that only lives a few years...combined with the injuries he suffered and the untold volumes of alcohol...a history of insomnia…..it caught up with him.” Bucky bit his tongue, he could only imagine the aches and pains that were going to get his goat one day.  _ Too many fights in too many narrow stairwells. Too many falls from too many heights.  _

“He...died….in pain…?” He repeated, clearing his throat. 

“Yes.” Gamora answered, clinically. “Won’t we all?” She scrutinized him, the silver metal webbing etched into her flesh gleamed in the passing stars. Bucky looked at his own vibranium arm, rubbing it unconsciously with his good hand.

“Guess so,” he forced through the sudden lump in his throat. The confirmation of Rocket’s suffering riled in his stomach. “Why didn’t you take him to a medic?” He challenged, anger was easier than grief. “Your the Guardians of the fucking Galaxy, one of you must have known someone, someplace that could have fxed him!” His fists clenched, leaning forward against the table. “You could’ve taken him to Wakanda!” His voice rose in rage and helplessness. 

“We did everything we could,” Gamora answered calmly. “And nothing that he didn’t want us to do.” Her eyes landed on Bucky’s arm. “He didn’t want to go to Wakanda,” she finished with a breath. Bucky watched her facade momentarily betray her. Like an expert, she hid it instantly, clearing her throat and looking down to fiddle with her rings. 

“Who cares what he wants! It’s not like he had a choice at that point….” the words died in his throat and he covered his face with his good hand, forcing himself to breathe.  _  You know what sentience means Barnes?! Choices! I could make my own dast choices!  _ The memory of Rocket’s words rang loudly in his ears.

“I’m sorry,” he finally managed, the fight gone from him. It was a stale sorry, forced and awkward and both of them knew it. But that was what you said didn’t you? When someone died and you didn’t know what else to say? It was sircumcript. Gamora’s frown only deepened. Her observation of him uncomfortably impeccable, scrutinizing him further with the eyes of a trained killer. Looking for any signs of hostility, identifying the places where he concealed his knives and the one gun he’d brought along just in case. Old habits die hard.

“Don’t let Groot bother you,” she continued as if she weren’t sizing him up. “He hasn’t been the same since…” 

“Ahh,” Bucky leaned back, stretching his arms above his head. “I’m used to people treating me with contemptuous resentment. It’s better than the alternative.” 

“What’s the alternative?”

“Murderous unadulterated loathing.” He smirked, “I have that effect on people. It’s a gift.” Gamora flashed a smile with a satisfied huff to boot. Bucky returned the grin, sharing the levity for a moment. She had a nice smile, rare but genuine. 

“We don’t have much extra space,” she stood after a moment, back into her distant severity. “But you and Captain Rogers can settle down wherever.”

“Thanks,” Bucky nodded to her as she turned to go, halting in the doorway 

“We’ll be on X2 in 10 hours terran time.” 

\---

Maybe it was because he was sleeping in a new place, surrounded by new people. Maybe it was because it had been a long time since he’d last had night terrors this bad and the universe just liked to fuck with him. Or maybe it was because the only other person to have nightmares like these was no longer dreaming at all. Whatever the reason, Bucky jolted awake in a sweaty daze, chest heaving, trying to shake away the feeling of prying gloved hands poking into his flesh. 

“Buck,” Steve’s quiet voice beckoned him from the terrors, one arm sliding up his back, rubbing between his shoulders in small smooth circles. 

“He didn’t deserve it Steve,” Bucky’s voice trembled. His fingers curled around the metal bench on which they’d squeezed themselves. “R...Rocket he didn’t deserve what they did to him.” He tried to suck air between words as if he was drowning. “he shouldn’t have died Steve, not like he did. Not...not with metal festering in his insides.”  Bucky’s breath came in ragged gasps no matter how hard he tried to settle himself. 

“Bucky...shhh….” Steve tried, but the man continued. 

“He didn’t deserve what happened to him...but...I, I did.” Bucky shut his eyes against it, trying to concentrate on Steve’s steady touch. 

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked softly,  Bucky lifted his head from his hands, meeting Steve’s steady gaze with his own. 

“I killed those people Steve,” he choked.

“That wasn’t you James, Hydra made you do those things,”  the fervor in Steve’s face spoke for itself but Bucky only let out a shuddering sigh. 

“Not Hydra,” Bucky cut him off with more vitriol then he intended. “Before that,” he ran a clammy hand over his brow, silently praying none of the Guardians were awake. “I killed those men in the war...and when Hydra took me,” he leaned against Steve’s chest. “It wasn’t just brainwashing. They took that violence and just...enhanced it.” Bucky turned over his shoulder to look at Steve’s determined face. Still seeing the best in him, even after all he’d done. After everything the two of them had done. “Rocket was a little animal before they...c..created him...he was innocent. But...me...I…” he swallowed. “I was already a killer.” Steve opened his mouth to continue but Bucky leaned forward, kissing him roughly. 

“I’ve killed more men than you,” Steve breathed, hoarse. “What does that make me?” 

“I have killed more men than either of you. And women too. I am not sexist. I hold enormous respect for women.”  Steve and Bucky leapt up from their cot to see the large tattooed man emerge from the shadows. 

“D...Drax!” Steve stepped between the Destroyer and Bucky. “That’s not what sexism….wait...how long have you been standing there?!”  The muscled man only looked between the two of them. 

“Groot sent me to get you. We are approaching X2.” Without further assurance Drax turned on his heel, motioning for them to follow. 

Out the window of the cockpit, still trying to calm his racing heart, Bucky gapped at the teeming planet before them. Enormous alone in the galaxy but for the stars and colored in a thousand shades of green. 

“Hold onto your butts,” Quill smirked, slamming on the controls sending the ship speeding forward. 

Steve hissed in shock, slamming his hand on a fake break, 

“Fuck!” Bucky let out a small laugh, catching Steve around the waist as they plummeted closer to the surface.

\---

Bucky did not know what to expect, but this certainly wasn’t it.  Trees of every shape and size covered the planet in a rainforest like density. Streams of clear water gilded around trunks and through spindly roots. He arched his neck to look upward at one of the four suns circling the planet, their rays of light streaming in gilded brilliance through the canopy. Flowers bloomed fragrant and bright along their path, giving of sweet scents the likes of which he had never smelled. Bucky looked over his shoulder to where Steve was gazing in wonderment, he knew the man well enough by now to know when he was suppressing the urge to whip out a sketchbook or notebook. Steve’s unfettered curiosity made Bucky grin despite their somber destination. 

“Too bad you left your khaki shorts at home,” he couldn’t resist teasing, brushing a large fanned leaf out of the way. Steve smirked, stepping over a large low lying root. Bucky looked forward again, making out the top of Groot’s head through the dense foliage. Gamora followed him, then Drax and Mantis, who remained close to Nebula, clinging on the bionic woman’s arm. Pointedly, Peter had refused to go no matter how much Gamora had pressed him. The last place Bucky had seen the man before they set off was the main corridor, down which Quill lumbered, headphones on, going to brood no doubt. Bucky knew it was wrong to hate him for it, but something about the cowardice, set him smoldering. 

Bucky ducked his head under a low hanging branch, stooping over and then stood. 

“We’re here,” Gamora gestured to the clearing before them. A sloping hill arched upward to the edge of a drop off  overlooking the vast vista of forest and pools beyond. On the crest of the hill a noble sprawling tree grew strong and taunt, its large crown wide and full. The thick roots bore deep into the earth and spilling off the edge of the cliff. 

“I am Groot,” Groot pointed towards the tree stoically. His face un-readable. He looked to Gamora who only nodded in confirmation, turning on her heel and walking towards the large tree. Bucky swallowed, mouth dry and turned to Steve.

“You still want to do this? No one will judge you if you don’t.” Bucky could feel Groot’s narrow gaze on him.

“Oh I know someone who will,” he smirked sarcastically and followed Gamora up the hill.

\---

“There,” Gamora breathed now that they stood before the large tree. Something about the place made Bucky feel small and quiet, a hallowed ground of its own kind. The tree itself was no distinct species as far as Bucky could tell. He followed her eyes to a notch in the tree dark and perfect size for a small creature to curl up inside. He stood there a  moment, frozen in what to do. Not dissimilar to after he’d gone on a spree, after he’d murdered someone, taken someone out. Head in a fog, on the verge of running in a panic, fueled by nightmares and whatever else Hydra had pumped into his veins. This time however, he did not run away. Bucky reached out, fingers brushing the rough bark of the tree with the same hesitant tenderness he had used to touch Rocket’s fur. In their years of friendship Bucky had stroked Rocket’s fur a total of three times. (Besides the handful of occasions on which he’d grabbed hold of that ringed tail to yank Rocket out a jam in the heat of some drunken brawl or the target of some enemy five times his size). Once shortly after they met and it was revealed how alike the two of them were. The second time when he’d had to save the raccoon’s life by re-assembling his cybernetics, using the howling voices in his head to guide him and lastly when he had told Rocket the true nature of his creation. A prototype made by Hydra as a test run for making howlies. 

Bucky willed himself to take a deep breath, resting his palm flat against the tree. What had Rocket done after this violent discovery? He’d curled up in the man’s lap, and  fallen asleep. It was a trust Bucky had not earned, had done nothing to deserve and yet, Rocket snored and slept content and Bucky hadn’t shut his eyes a wink that night in the dimly lit apartment. Instead he ran his  hand over the raccoonoid’s side rhythmically, letting the warm soft fur calm his mind and ease his fears.Watching as with each little breath of the sleeping creature, skin pulled tight across metal. Yet Rocket curled in his lap, not unlike an abused dog who finally came to rest content by your feet. 

Bucky looked up, into the leafy crown of the tree, squinting his eyes against the sunlight. He swallowed, hand still resting against the tree. _ Stop being such a sap Barnes,  _ Rocket’s husky voice mocked in his mind, laced with irritation. If only the raccoonoid would reprimand him now. A hundred different sarcastic cutting remarks ran through the man’s imagination. How Rocket would tease him if he could see the tears pressing against the back of Bucky’s eyes. He waited for it...for any grating laughter or flick of the tail. But no, he’d never hear that sarcastic voice again. Rocket would never make fun of him. They’d never spend another night at some dive bar getting increasingly drunk and daring each other into dumber and dumber acts of brazen stupidity. They’d never exchange weapons or old tales of battle. Rocket would never perch up on Groot’s shoulders or scream over a hail of gunfire in blood thirsty joy. They’d never look warily at each other, knowing the other had spent the night in a terrorizing nightmare. They’d never steal a sympathetic glance when they thought the other wasn’t looking especially during the drizzly days when the metal in their skin ached particularly bad, or during the sweltering heat and frigid cold. They would never share the shame of the things they’d become, the things they’d done.  _ Guess I’m the only monster left.  _ But if the little abomination could drift off peacefully...surrounded by a family he’d found in the arms of the person he loved most in all the world, then well, maybe there was some hope for Bucky after all. He could only hope for as much. 

The spell broke after a moment, his hand slipped away and he stepped back gazing at the lush grass. Gamora, Drax, Mantis and Nebula stood some distance away lost in their own thoughts. Steve gave him a sad smile, squeezing his shoulder before stepping up to say his own goodbye. Bucky looked out across the immense forest, his gaze gliding in a haze over it’s beauty until he saw Groot. Back turned to the tree, form rigid and away from the others.

“I’m sorry I shoved you earlier,” he tried approaching the flora slowly. “If there’s anything you need or want….just...let me know.” 

_ There’s nothing I need or want that you can give.  _

Bucky nodded, “I know...I just mean...well...if you ever want to…” his heart tried to find the words, muddling through the thick black tar of grief. “He was my friend too and….I know it’s obvious but...he really loved you.”

_ He loved you too.  _

“Ha, I don’t think….wait,” Bucky turned to the flora in slow comprehension. “Groot, I think I….I think I understood you. Wait say something again!” Groot turned to him, face still drawn but no longer contemptuous.

It’s about time,

“Ha! No shit! I’ve been trying to understand you for years!” A laugh broke through Bucky’s melancholy. How many hours had Rocket tried and subsequently failed to teach him? 

_ Only when you truly listen do you begin to understand.  _

“Is that some zen buddhist saying or what? Shit,” he shook his head in disbelief. “I guess you're right!”

_ What is zen?  _

“Ask Quill later,” Bucky waved a dismissive hand and the two of them resumed their silence, gradually turning around to face the large tree where Rocket lay. 

_ I guess he was right about one thing _

“What’s that?”

_ He promised not to go until someone else could understand. I thought he meant them,  _ Groot gestured to the other Guardians.  _  It seems I was wrong.  But he was right after all.  _ Those large eyes looked at Bucky with renewed appreciation. Bucky felt something inside him inflate, joy or sorrow or something in between he couldn’t quite tell. Maybe it was one in the same. He rubbed his eyes, watching the suns set against the magnificent tree casting a glowing golden light upon them all. 

“Guess he was.”

_**The End** _


End file.
